Report: Poorer Countries Suffer Most From Extreme Weather Events

Small island states are amongst the countries most impacted by extreme weather events worldwide. A number of developing countries regularly already have to address weather catastrophes, especially poorer countries like Haiti, Sri Lanka or Viet Nam are facing great challenges. These are some of the key findings of the Climate Risk Index published by Germanwatch today at the climate summit in Bonn.

“Recent storms with intensity levels never seen before have had disastrous impacts on island states”, says David Eckstein of Germanwatch, one of the authors of the index. “In 2016, Haiti was hit by the strongest hurricane in over 50 years and Fiji was struck by the strongest tropical cyclone ever recorded on the island. This is why Haiti ranks first and Fiji ranks third in the index of the most-impacted countries in 2016.” In many of the countries most affected by natural disasters in the past year, extreme rainfall followed periods of severe drought. In Zimbabwe (No. 2 in 2016) for example, rain caused dramatic flooding that killed 250 people and left thousands of people homeless.